Where did February go?

February might be the shortest month of the year, but it still shouldn't be ignored. Yet that's pretty much what I did.

The previous post about clearing the last few free quests from my log all took place on February 1st.

Today is May 4th. How did I lose February, March and April?

Not that there hasn't been time to finish the article. As a matter of fact, I'd written most of the post back on February when I'd played through the last free quests on Runescape. So if the article was so close to finished, what kept me from just hitting Publish?

That's one of the nasty features/bugs of depression is you get to reflect on the time you have, where you're not doing any constructive pursuit, and your brain kicks in, "Hey, are you just going to waste another day?" So now it's even a darker morass you sink into, with the promise that once you dig out it'll all be better.

This rant is not to discount the "It gets better" campaign about bullying. Outside pressures do taper off as you grow up but depression brings its own bag of doubt and worry from inside your brain.

Want to know a weird coincidence about depression? It has a greater chance of affecting the kids (and later adults) generally tagged as gifted. What's funny is being smarter than average is you can hide the negative drag on your abilities by doing so much better than expected much of the time, and playing catch up once the brain decides to hit the brakes for a few days or even weeks. That's how I've gotten by for years, completing college and holding several professional positions.

But I've finally hit the point where I can't see moving forward with any joy. And nobody I tell believes me. Conclusions are drawn that because I don't write then obviously I'm not interested in writing anymore. I must not be interested in gaming because I never bring up gaming. And so on and so on.

Maybe I've learned from repeated experience that when I ask about games then nobody wants to play. When I write, nobody reads it. Someone close to me said the other night, "You don't write on your blog anymore. Or I don't think you do, I haven't looked in a while." Which tells me that nobody, least of all myself, is expecting me to write anything of consequence. I have a long history of people telling me how and where I've messed up. And yet these same people seem surprised that I have such a low opinion of myself.

And the solutions! I just need to get out, do the things I used to enjoy. Or find another job doing exactly what I've been loathing because changing locations but not activities will fix everything. Of course, I can't hate what I'm doing, because I'd be looking for something different if I was.

That's just going through the motions. That's like chest compressions from CPR; you can force blood through the body but that is literally having a dying person go through the motions of being alive. It's just postponing the time of death unless something changes.

So I'll be here, writing inconsequential junk until the day I die. Maybe I'll start talking more about how fun being depressed is, and how people immediately understand why one can just "get over it" and restart life.

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~